Kyu Han Koh

Scalable Game Design: A Strategy to Bring Systemic Computer Science Education to Schools through Game Design and Simulation Creation

An educated citizenry that participates in and contributes to science technology engineering and mathematics innovation in the 21st century will require broad literacy and skills in computer science (CS). School systems will need to give increased attention to opportunities for students to engage in computational thinking and ways to promote a deeper understanding of how technologies and software are used as design tools. However, K-12 students in the United States are facing a broken pipeline for CS education. In response to this problem, we have developed the Scalable Game Design curriculum based on a strategy to integrate CS education into the regular school curriculum. This strategy includes opportunities for students to design and program games and science technology engineering and mathematics simulations. An approach called Computational Thinking Pattern Analysis has been developed to measure and correlate computational thinking skills relevant to game design and simulations. Results from a study with more than 10,000 students demonstrate rapid adoption of this curriculum by teachers from multiple disciplines, high student motivation, high levels of participation by women, and interest regardless of demographic background.

Towards the Automatic Recognition of Computational Thinking for Adaptive Visual Language Learning

Visual programming languages can be used to make computer science more accessible to a broad range of students. The evaluative focus of current research in the area of visual languages for educational purposes primarily aims to better understand motivational benefits as compared to traditional programming languages. Often these visual languages claim to teach students computational thinking concepts; however, although the evaluations show that students may exhibit more enthusiasm, it is not always clear what computational thinking concepts students have actually learned. In this paper we attempt to develop a visual semantic evaluation tool for student-created games and simulations that goes towards depicting the computational thinking concepts implemented by the students. Through semantically analyzing a given student’s created projects over time, this visual evaluation tool, called the Computational Thinking Pattern (CTP) graph, can possibly indicate the existence of computational thinking transfer from games to science simulations.

Using scalable game design to teach computer science from middle school to graduate school

A variety of approaches exist to teach computer science concepts to students from K-12 to graduate school. One such approach involves using the mass appeal of game design and creation to introduce students to programming and computational thinking. Specifically, Scalable Game Design enables students with varying levels of expertise to learn important concepts relative to their experience. This paper presents our observations using Scalable Game Design over multiple years to teach middle school students, college level students, graduate students, and even middle school teachers fundamental to complex computer science and education concepts. Results indicate that Scalable Game Design appeals broadly to students, regardless of background, and is a powerful teaching tool in getting students of all ages exposed and interested in computer science. Furthermore, it is observed that many student projects exhibit transfer enabling their games to explain complex ideas, from all disciplines, to the general public.

The zones of proximal flow: guiding students through a space of computational thinking skills and challenges

This paper presents a novel pedagogical framework, entitled the Zones of Proximal Flow, which integrates Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development theory with Csikszentmihalyis ideas about Flow. Flow focuses on the individual-- an individual is in Flow when challenges are balanced with skills. The Zone of Proximal Development, on the other hand, brings in a social learning aspect focusing on a students ability to learn concepts with external support. From our research experiences bringing game and simulation design into middle school classrooms, we attempt to provide students with appropriate challenges using a project-first based approach that aims to keep students in Flow. The project-first approach employs inquiry based scaffolding to guide students, with appropriate support by their teachers, through Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development, back in to Csikszentmihalyis state of Flow for an ideal learning experience. We call this space the Zones of Proximal Flow. Data indicate that the Zones of Proximal Flow approach works, keeping classrooms engaged in the act of game design and enabling students to advance to more complex program creations.

Will it stick?: exploring the sustainability of computational thinking education through game design

A strategy exposing middle school students to computer science through game design appears to be a promising means to mitigate the computer science pipeline challenge. Particularly when short game design activities are integrated into already existing middle school courses, research suggests that game design is effective in broadening participation and motivating large numbers of students, along with large percentages of women and minorities. A study with over 10,000 students is exploring the sustainability of this approach and finding positive responses to inquiries such as these: Do teachers continue to use game design? Can they advance beyond extrinsic rewards such as research stipends? After building one game, do students advance, building more games or even STEM simulations?

Real Time Assessment of Computational Thinking

This paper suggests a Cyberlearning tool based on a highly innovative assessment methodology that helps teachers with computer science education. Currently, there is a strong push to integrate aspects of programming and coding into the classroom environment. However, few if any tools exist that enable real-time formative assessment of in-class programming tasks. The proposed REACT (Real Time Evaluation and Assessment of Computational Thinking) system is a first step toward allowing teachers to see which high-level concepts students have mastered and which ones they are struggling with as students code in real time. REACT supports and facilitates the teaching of 21st century computing skills such as computational thinking [1] in the classroom environment.

CS education re-kindles creativity in public schools

Creativity is an important aspect of industry and education. The lack of creativity in current students has become a concern for educators. Through the process of implementing the Scalable Game Design project to teach computer science through game authoring, fostered/increased creativity occurred in public middle schools. Despite some structural limitations of the US educational system, creativity among the participating students was recognized. This paper describes a unique solution to fostering creativity while teaching game design in the limiting public school environment.

Closing The Cyberlearning Loop: Enabling Teachers To Formatively Assess Student Programming Projects

Teachers are increasingly integrating game design and simulation creation projects as part of their classroom curricula. These projects have many benefits including motivating students in STEM activities and exposing students to computational thinking - a key part of upcoming science standards. However, barriers still exist to project-based computer science in a lab environment. One major issue is that, as students are creating their projects, it is extremely difficult for teachers to know how every student is progressing through a given activity and how to keep every student engaged. This paper introduces a Cyberlearning system entitled REACT (Real-Time Evaluation and Assessment of Computational Thinking) that is an initial step towards giving teachers quickly discernible real-time data corresponding to each student project. REACT provides teachers with a sortable dashboard, consisting of data from each student, that shows the characters students created and used to populate their game or simulation world as well as the semantic meaning behind what students have programmed. A feasibility test with four middle school classrooms shows that REACT helps teachers formatively assess students and provide targeted instruction to struggling individuals. Furthermore, teachers showed excitement at the summative and student self-assessment capabilities of REACT, and every teacher independently stated they would use the REACT system in subsequent end-user programming units.

Inspiring collaborative benefits: an interaction between a virtual and a physical group learning infrastructure

The physical environments are often limited for fostering and enriching creativity and collaborative benefits, especially in the educational context. In general, students have limited opportunities to experience peer-to-peer and group collaborative learning. Gaining knowledge, understanding and group interaction skills from a collaborative learning experience in a classroom are often rare. This paper introduces how a virtual environment can be combined with a physical environment to achieve collaborative benefits. We observed an online homework submission system that facilitated this collaborative process. Although this is only one example of one class, these observed collaborative benefits and the way that the virtual and physical environments combine to produce them could be useful for other courses where collaborative skills are necessary or desired.

Towards a Concept Inventory for Algorithm Analysis Topics

We present initial results from our work towards developing a concept inventory for algorithm analysis (AACI) at the post-CS2 level. We used a Delphi process to identify a list of algorithm analysis topics that were considered both important and hard by surveying a panel of experienced instructors. Through a similar survey process, we identified a list of student misconceptions related to the identified topics. Based on this, a set of pilot AACI items were developed. We validated the misconceptions list by analyzing student responses to four administrations of the pilot AACI in two different universities during Fall 2015 and Spring 2016. Results revealed that a sufficient number of students held most of the misconceptions identified in the list.